Behind the scenes with the Exploratorium, A Curious Summer and Tinkering Unlimited as they prepare to work with young learners to harness wind’s invisible power through discovering where it comes from and how to predict its behavior while studying aerodynamics and lift. Through tinkering with wind-powered machines and vehicles, such as a paragliding wing, turbines and sailboats and designing kites and gliders, this hands-on experience will open new doors into the mysterious power of WIND.

Since forever, I’ve been hooked on flight. In planes big or small, balloons, anything that flies, goes fast and is otherwise in direct opposition to the side of me that believes strongly in being safe by observing best practices at all times.

I once lived in Juneau, Alaska and used to watch paragliders from my deck, wondering how it must feel to soar unaided by anything but the wind and a little technology, simple in its complexity. I wondered how I’d ever get a chance to find out. Enter my new pal, Gever, who took me up in his paraglider yesterday over Mussel Park just south of San Francisco.

We had so much fun, we’re going out again today. Gever told me it’s just the thing and, after all, some meetings at the Exploratorium and a trip to the airport will take us right by Mussel Park, again, where I shot the footage in the short edit from yesterday’s flight – “Twist my arm,” I said:

Go cart design, assembly and testing by the inimitable Team Tinker with snippets of boat model design and other moments of singular, whimsical tinkering mastery. Thanks to Moby for his song, Porcelain.

Think, Make, Tinker: Theo, Isaac, Leo, Max, Hannah, Nik, Sam, Jacob, Julie and Gever set off to test their inventions on Day 6 of Tinkering School. Nods to King of Hawaii for the groovy surf vibe.

A few clips from the 5th day of Tinkering School:

thanks to @kurt_vega for reminding us of this beautiful film by Cristóbal Vila:

I was only a little let down when the pilot played Enya over the comm as we lifted off for this chopper pass of Juneau because, after all, i was in the cockpit of an AStar-B2 and we were batting the air over Southeastern Alaska. I was riding shotgun. Z was in the back with Lou, who was shooting.

If i’d had my druthers, i’d have chosen this section of live audio of Jerry and the boys from MSG in September of 1991 so i threw this together quick-like in QTPro as a meager, self-indulgent attempt at redemption – special thanks to
http://vimeo.com/tweeprise

While living in Alaska, I had a heavy habit of checking this every day: a groovily-nerdy resource provided by the University of Alaska’s Geophysical Institute: